Recipe: Diego's Tortilla Espanola

The last time I was in Madrid, my friend Diego taught me to make tortilla Espanola. I was there visiting Renee, a friend from SF, who’d gone on a sort of spiritual sabbatical (like me, Renee is a former ad drudge). She rented a spare room in the Chueca district, befriended her new roommate, Diego, and adopted the party-till-dawn lifestyle that fuels life in the Spanish capital. (Okay. So maybe the sabbatical wasn't entirely spiritual in nature. But the difference between refreshing one's spirit and refreshing one's spirits is minor indeed.)

I showed up in March. The weather that week alternated between spring breezes and overcast skies. On a day cursed by a constant drizzle, we made the tortilla Espanola in their kitchen. Renee napped, in preparation for that evening, so I was Diego's eager pupil.

Diego, who may indeed be the real meat of this piece, has a face made for laughing and a personality that readily obliges; a constant jokester, even in a second language, he manages to light up a room even in the dark of a daytime storm. This is a guy who took me out to dinner with his mother on my first night in town. To know him really is to love him.

These are his instructions. I was merely a vessel.

Diego's Tortilla Espanola
Yield: Enough for 8 tiny girls at a tea party, or 4 adults just getting sleepy at 7 a.m.

4 boiling potatoes
2 tsp coarse salt
5-6 TBSP olive oil
3 eggs
1/4 onion, sliced into thin half-moons

1. Peel the potatoes and slice them thin (Diego advises you do so “with plenty of love.”) Sprinkle the slivers with 1 tsp of the salt. In a large non-stick pan, heat 2-3 TBSP of the oil. Add potatoes and stir/flip often with a spatula over the next 15-20 minutes as they brown. Drain oil from pan and set potatoes aside.

2. Add 1 TBSP oil and heat again, adding onions. Saute till golden-brown, 2-3 minutes.

3. Crack 3 eggs into a bowl, add remaining teaspoon of salt and stir with a fork (or a whisk) until lots of tiny bubbles appear. (I'm no Harold McGee but I imagine this is to make the eventual omelet light and fluffy.) Add the potatoes and stir, making sure that each potato gets wetted by the egg. (Diego says the wetter, the better.)

4. Heat 1 TBSP oil in the pan, and add the egg and potato mixture. Check on the egg as it cooks: once it lifts away from the sides and bottom of the pan, it’s time to flip it and brown the other side.

To do this, Diego recommends a three-step process:
1. Place a round plate next to the pan.
2. Carefully slide the tortilla Espanola onto the plate.
3. Add remaining oil to the frying pan, and then turn the tortilla Espanola back into the pan, cooked side up.

5. Once both sides have cooked up to a crisp golden brown, slide the tortilla Espanola onto a paper towel to soak up the excess oil.

I like to cut it into wedges and serve it hot alongside spicy chorizo sausage and a green salad with warmed goat cheese and mushrooms, or save it for a cold midnight snack (forks optional).

Comments

[Ursula]

This would be even more delectable if shared with Antonio Banderas!

[Eva Rosenberg]

Thanks for the recipe--FABULOUS!